How to check tuberculosis

Mr Adetoun (not real name) and his three children have tuberculosis. He was the first to contract the disease followed by his children. One of them died of multi-drug resistance tuberculosis; another is undergoing treatment/medication for tuberculosis. The father and the last child are battling with multi-drug resistance tuberculosis.

They are undergoing treatment in a tertiary hospital in Lagos and have been on admission for about two months now. They spend about N30,000 weekly for treatment.

The ill-health of the family got the attention of the Respiratory Unit, Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), which organised a programme on the upsurge of multi drug resistance tuberculosis.

The programme was organised in conjunction with Save Lives Initiative, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), and sponsored by Prime Atlantic and Goldlink Insurance Plc.

According to the Project Director, the Save Lives Initiative and Senior Register, Medical Micro Biology, Respiratory Unit, LUTH, Dr Ochang Ernest, tuberculosis affects about one third of the world’s population and kills about 1.7 million people yearly. He said Nigeria was among the 20 countries with the highest disease burden.

Ernest said tuberculosis is a treatable disease. But he noted that most cases of tuberculosis are still not diagnosed because of the inadequacy of the diagnostic test routinely used in Nigeria – smear microscopy.

He added that the unfortunate thing compounding the situation of tuberculosis is the wide spread emergence of MDR – TB whose prevalence in Nigeria is 12.5 per cent of all TB cases.

“These strains can only be detected by culture and drug susceptibility testing. Drug susceptibility testing allows the TB strain carried by a patient to be tested in the laboratory with the antibiotics that are intended to treat the patient”.

A Consultant, Head, Respiratory Diseases Unit, Department of Internal Medicine, LUTH, Dr Cyril Chukwu, said tuberculosis is spread by micro-organisms in the air.

He said tuberculosis can affect anybody irrespective of age, gender or status. He said the disease is transmitted by inhaling tuberculosis micro-organisms from the carriers; through cough, sneezing, singing, crying or talking.

Chukwu said that there are no specific ways to prevent tuberculosis because the micro-organisms are in the air. He noted that coughing, coughing out blood, fever, weight loss or loss of appetite are some symptoms of tuberculosis.

The Consultant said tuberculosis can lead to multi drug resistance tuberculosis if not properly treated at its early stage. “The multi drug resistance tuberculosis can lead to death,” Chukwu said.

In a similar view, a consultant in the Respiratory Unit, LUTH, Mrs Dania Michelei, dentified cost and ignorance as factors that hinder tuberculosis patients from getting proper treatment.